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http://www.pressherald.com/sports/college/hockey/040327soll.shtml

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                        Saturday, March 27, 2004

                       COLUMN: Steve Solloway



                             More than a grunt when he spoke




                          Copyright  2004 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.





ALBANY, N.Y. - He's not a team captain. He's not a senior leader. He doesn't score a lot of goals.

     John Ronan is a grunt on this University of Maine hockey team. A ditch digger. A forward on the fourth line. The junior from South Boston who doesn't mind breaking his back doing the heavy lifting and doesn't care if it goes unnoticed.

     Friday night, John Ronan cared. His team was down, 4-1. His team was 20 minutes away from the end of its season. And John Ronan had something to say.

     While his teammates caught their breath in the locker room between the second and third periods, this silent, solid citizen decided it was time to speak out. He asked Todd Jackson, his captain, if he could.

     Jackson told him to fire away.

     Amazing things can happen when you feel cornered. When you're up against the wall and people think you're finished. Done. Kaput. When the breaking point is at hand.

     Maine was there. For two periods Harvard outplayed the top-ranked college hockey team in the country. This team of scholars and very good hockey players was composed, hungry and beating Maine to the puck.

     Harvard peppered Maine goalie Jimmy Howard with shots. Quality shots from close range because Howard's teammates were doing too little to help.

     Inside the Pepsi Arena, no one could remember the last time Maine had scored four goals in a final period to win the game that would prolong a season.

     "That's a lot of goals, but we felt we could get them back, one at a time," said Greg Moore, the sophomore forward from Lisbon.

     But four goals? In 20 minutes? Against a good team that sensed it was moving in for the knockout?

     "Yeah, there was a sense of urgency," said Moore, who scored that fourth and winning goal. "We all felt it."

     They felt it because Ronan spoke it. Anyone could have, but Ronan's words hammered. The guy who never asked for glory asked for their attention and got it.

     Ronan scored the winning goal when Maine beat Harvard in the NCAA regionals two years ago. He was a freshman. A kid.

     Now he's a man with something to say.

     "I was assertive," said Ronan. "Let's say that."

     Assertive is a boardroom word. A genteel word. Somehow you got the impression he was more than that.

     "I was loud," said Ronan. "I was."

     No, he got a little crazy. Maybe he didn't punch the water cooler or overturn a couple of training tables and chairs and break his wrist as interim coach Greg Cronin did five or six years ago in the Hockey East tournament.

     But he might have been close.

     In the sanitized version, Ronan told his teammates they were playing without emotion and without discipline. That they had hung Howard out to dry.

     The same Howard who had stood on his head to keep his teammates in last week's three-overtime win over Massachusetts to win the Hockey East title.

     Four goals? Ronan expected that from the men who had become his teammates. Behind closed doors and for the first time, Ronan challenged them.

     "I was surprised that it was him," said Michel Leveille, who plays with Moore and Colin Shields on Maine's third line. "It was a really great speech."

     After the storm passed, after Maine scored four goals in 20 minutes to beat Harvard 5-4, the men who made it happen seemed unsurprised.

     "This is a team," said Coach Tim Whitehead. "Last year we had more experience, better talent. This year we have a better team.

     "This team has been through so much, they know what it's like to come back."

     So much? Think back two years to Shawn Walsh's passing. As long as there are players who remember talking with him, listening to him, his impact will continue.

     Yes, after the game Walsh's name came up again. Neither Whitehead nor any of the players have any hesitation in admitting his presence is still with them.

     To this day they don't want to let him down. They weathered the tragedy that his death from cancer presented. So what's a four-goal deficit? Particularly when you start looking out for each other?

     One man spoke. They all listened.

     Staff Writer Steve Solloway can be contacted at 791-6412 or at:

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